FORMATION OF THE INTEGRATED ECONOMIC SYSTEM: THE EUROPEAN MARKET AT THE END OF XIV – THE MIDDLE OF THE XV CENTURY

Abstract

The article deals with the characteristic features of the influence of external and internal economic factors on the development of the economic structure in Europe (from the end of the XIV – to the middle of the XV century). The main elements and factors of transformation and integration of the European economic systems, as a result of the economic crisis (the end of the XIV – the middle of the XV century), were defined. In particular these are regional political changes of centralization and consolidation, modernization of ways and means of communication, the emergence of the Western European urbanization process, the demographic crisis, the agrarian revolution and the emergence of interdependencies between the city and rural areas, concerning provision of food and raw materials. These factors contributed to the greater integration potential of politically remote regions and the emergence of institutional parameters for further economic disagreements between different parts of Europe and their similarities. As a result, during the XIV – the first half of the XV century new economic zoning is being formed in Europe. In particular, Central European and Baltic-Black Sea economic macro-regions are formed. At this time the countries of Eastern Europe actually begin to play the role of the raw material appendage of the entire European economy, because the manifestations of the pan-European economic crisis of the late XIV – early XV century had a much less distinctive character here. It is important that if for Western Europe the opposition of the economic structures of the Baltic and Mediterranean trade and economic regions was carrying considerable loss, then Eastern Europe would only benefit from increased trade and the attraction of new economic centers to foreign trade. In fact, the redistribution of regional economic structures and the formation of new interstructural ties within the integrated economic system of the newly established macro-regions has created a new image of the European economy divided into production and raw material zones.